Coaters have been used not only in printing image information, but also in a film formation process when various flat panel displays are manufactured such as liquid crystal displays, organic EL (Electro Luminescence) displays, electron emitter displays, plasma displays, and electrophoretic displays.
Such a coater includes: a droplet jet head (for example, ink jet head) which ejects a solution such as an ink in the form of droplets toward an object to be coated; a dryer which dries the droplets landed on the object to be coated; etc. This coater contributes to manufacturing of various products (coated articles) by landing a plurality of droplets on the object to be coated by the droplet jet head, forming dot strings of a predetermined pattern, drying every droplet on the object to be coated, and forming a coating film according to liquid quality.
In such a coating film formation process, a coater that dries every droplet at a high speed by reduced pressure drying in drying the droplets has been proposed (see, for example, JP-A 2001-235277 and JP-A 2003-234273). Besides a coater body part, this coater includes: an accommodating chamber such as a vacuum chamber which accommodates an object to be coated after coating; an exhaust part which exhausts gas within the accommodating chamber and reduces the pressure within the accommodating chamber; etc.